Another photo at bottom of review
Lindberg 1/25 1940 Ford Coupe
Kit #: 72159
Price: $10.00
Decals: stock and a nice set of off-register flames
Date of review: 20 January 1998
Review and photos by: Scott Van Aken
Another photo at bottom of review
I know almost zilch about this car except that I like the body style and they used these bodies for race cars at the local dirt track when I was growing up. I had some serious thought about using this just for that reason, but thought better of it as that is too much like scratch building! I guess it sold well as when I went on-line to ask about it, I got a number of responses. All of them helpful. Thanks fellows.
This kit is molded in a gawd-awful shade of blue and is nice and shiny. Supposedly you don't need to paint it. Right. Anyway, the parts were all there, the transparencies in their own bag, and all the parts had some flash on them. The chrome ones had lots of flash. I personally wish these guys wouldn't include chrome parts, but the kids like them and car models sell very well. You get parts to make a hot rod, including a supercharger, and some very neat wheels and tires. I had decided to build mine stock so had a number of spare parts.
This is a flathead V8 and not very well represented. As I said, all the parts had flash on them and most were rather softly molded. Not at all like a Monogram or modern Revell kit. Once everything is cleaned up, it goes together rather well. One interesting trait is the attachment of the wheels/tires. I have always had trouble getting all four to hit the road at one time, but Lindberg has a design that while a bit sloppy, alleviates this problem. Each wheel is attached to a hub that has some slop in it, allowing the wheel some extra movement in all axes. Properly glued, it is very strong and allows all the wheels to touch.
Anyway, I managed to stumble through the construction without too much trouble. When it came to the body, there needed to be some major sanding done. The front fenders had a large outward bulging crease on the outer sides. This was really large and required and industrial strength file to get near the right contour before sanding down. It was the only major glitch. I also noticed that the chassis is just a bit longer than the wheel wells, so had to live with that. Attachment of all the pieces was less than positive (other than the wheels). The locating tabs were always just a bit too big or too small or too far apart or too close together (if you get my drift). Every part attachment needed some sort of adjustment either to the part or its attachment location. Several parts had no exact locale (like the gas cap) so I had to guess.
Although this might sound a bit frustrating, it was no more so than many kits I have built. I do not know if it is typical of Lindberg as this is the first car kit I have built from them. When it came time to painting, I didn't know what color to use. I looked through an old issue of Automobile Quarterly, and found several photos of Fords of this era. All were painted in a dark or subdued color with a neutral interior, like beige or grey. I decided on a very dark green exterior and medium grey interior. Since I mostly build aircraft, I chose RLM 70 (black-green) for the exterior and RLM 75 (a darkish grey) for the interior. Both were Gunze acrylic paints thinned with Future floor wax to give it more gloss. After several coats, the interior was flattened with a clear matt, and the exterior got more Future to gloss it up. Naturally, I screwed up the exterior paint with some superglue, but it was patched and looks OK. Why can I not build a kit without at least one screwup??
Bare Metal Foil was used for the chrome parts and the final chrome bits attached using super glue or white glue. Overall the car looks very good, although I would not recommend this kit for a beginner.
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